S.A company, Accentuate plans to offer services to nuclear industry

Small-cap, Accentuate, which operates in flooring, maintenance, cleaning, metal treatment and water treatment sectors, plans to offer services to the nuclear industry﻿.

Fred Platt, the company’s chief executive, told CNBC Africa about its plans as well as how it had to combat fraud in the region of $4.4 million which has been handled legally.

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“The local economy as we know is slowing down. The vitality of the currency, I think, is the main problem. We have a situation where we deal with the currency and we’re still taking measures at a certain level and a week later, or a day later for that matter, could be very, very different. I think what that has done, as a manufacturer within the local environment, is we understand that we’re in turbulent times and that we have to look at alternative markets, certainly, to tie us through these difficult periods.”

– Fred Platt, Accentuate’s chief executive.

“We hedge any way, we’re not in the business of playing with currencies. But I think the problem that we have locally is that there’s only so much that the market can accept. In a market that’s already under pressure we’re seeing that confidence is low so many of the capital projects or the construction projects are being delayed until there’s a little bit more certainty.”

– Fred Platt, Accentuate’s chief executive.

“Unfortunately we’ve been through some difficult times and we’ve just settled the shareholder issue [with malcontent shareholders]. As you know all of our shareholders are hundred per cent supportive of our business, but unfortunately in December we found out that in the process of strengthening our internal audit, we found certain procedural irregularities at our factory. We investigated those and unfortunately it was confirmed that there was a fraud committed in the region of R70 million. We have taken all the remedial steps. We’ve instituted criminal and civil proceedings and I think we’ve taken a number of steps to strengthen our governance within the organisation.”

– Fred Platt, Accentuate’s chief executive.

“We’ve got a joint venture with India’s leading water treatment company, Iron Exchange. It is also Asia’s number one water treatment company and we’re positioning ourselves in a number of areas, including possible desalinization for nuclear plants or, alternatively, for use as well as industrial and commercial and municipal water treatment.”